AI Frontier Institute

Provides a civil cause of action for individuals injured by artificial intelligence.

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Rhode Island H 8052 (2026) has not been enacted. After introduction on 2026-02-27 and referral to House Judiciary, the committee recommended on 2026-03-26 that it be held for further study. If enacted, it would add section 9-1-55 to Chapter 9-1 (Causes of Action) and create strict liability for AI developers. A "developer" is a person who performs the initial training of an AI system, either by training a model or by fine-tuning an existing one. Under 9-1-55(b), developers would be liable, regardless of the care they exercised, for injuries that meet two conditions. First, an AI system must factually and proximately cause the injury through conduct that would satisfy the elements of negligence or any intentional tort or crime if an adult human of sound mind did it. Second, the conduct must have been neither intended by nor a result of negligence by the user or by any intermediary that fine-tuned, scaffolded, or modified the system. Defamation claims are excepted. Under 9-1-55(c), for torts that depend on mental state, there is a rebuttable presumption that the AI system had the relevant mental state if the fact-finder finds by a preponderance of the evidence that a natural person acting similarly would have had it. Judges or juries must find the presumed facts exist unless persuaded otherwise, and it is not a defense that AI systems cannot have mental states. Under 9-1-55(d), a developer has an absolute defense if it shows either that the model met the standard of care applicable to humans performing the same function, or that the injury resulted from a "capabilities failure" that would not amount to negligence, an intentional tort, or a crime if a human had done it. The act would take effect upon passage (Section 2).

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